There's an article on The Tech Report that goes into detail about Project Shield, NVIDIA's upcoming handheld computing device. They focus on the device's ability to stream PC games over the local wireless network, saying this makes this "arguably a new class of product." They note that the price will likely make this a luxury, but express enthusiasm of the local game streaming concept, noting there are no reasons other manufacturers like AMD could compete in this area, and rue the lack of a specific set of open protocols for low-latency local game streaming. They also call back to a recent interview on The Verge where Valve's Gabe Newell mentioned this may be an aspect of upcoming "Steam Box" hardware solutions: "The Steam Box will also be a server. Any PC can serve multiple monitors, so over time, the next-generation (post-Kepler) you can have one GPU that’s serving up eight simultaeneous [sic] game calls. So you could have one PC and eight televisions and eight controllers and everybody getting great performance out of it." Here is the Tech Report's takeaway:

Makes perfect sense, really. CPUs and GPUs continue to add parallel processing capacity, but most games are designed for consoles based on hardware that's out of date when it's released and then stagnates for years after that. Future PCs should have the ability not only to deliver a premium gaming experience in a traditional desktop environment, but also to provide a good experience for multiple networked sessions on separate devices. The potential for LAN parties—indeed, for multiplayer home arcades—is enormous. I couldn't be more excited.

I think Project Shield is an interesting idea, and kudos to Nvidia for thinking outside the box. If I was single and had money to burn, I'd probably get one just to fool around with/have something to do while, uh, taking care of business.